Sinfandel (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

I
carried Tony and the back pack home.  Before doing anything with the pack, I inspected both Tony and myself for ticks.  I didn’t find any on me, but Tony had picked up two during his raccoon-chasing adventure.  Using tweezers, I followed the directions Monica had given me and pulled them out.  After applying antiseptic, I put a bowl of Puppy Chow down for him and locked the doggie door.  No more puppy adventures until I figured out how to keep him from tunneling under the fence.

Staring at the pink and green pack on the counter, I debated whether to call Detective Obermeyer before I opened it.  The hole the raccoons had chewed was not big enough for me to get a good look inside.  If I called Obermeyer, he’d tell me to leave it alone until he arrived, so I unzipped it and took a gander. 

There were three grape-bunch skeletons.  Except for a few shriveled raisins, all of the grapes had been stripped off the stems, most likely by the raccoons.  Leaves were still attached to the stems, and though they were shrunken and wrinkled, the insulation of the pack appeared to have preserved them fairly well.

Carefully, I removed the remains and spread leaves from each bunch out on the counter, searching for the ones in the best condition.  They all appeared to be the same variety, though I couldn’t be sure due to their condition.  Flipping through the grape vine identification book that Andy had given me, I stopped when I found an illustration of Carignane leaves.  They matched.

Feeling just a bit guilty, I called Detective Obermeyer.

“You found what?” he said.

“A small back pack.  It has Beth Messina’s name written on it.”

“Don’t touch it.  I’ll be right over.”  Click.

Headlights from Detective Obermermeyer’s car shined through my window as he waited at the gate.  I clicked the opener to let him in. 

Holding Tony so he couldn’t escape, I opened the front door to let Obermeyer in.  He smiled and scratched Tony behind the ears and Tony licked his hand.

“Who’s this?”

“Tony,” I said.

“Hey buddy.”

I set the puppy down and he followed us into the kitchen, where I pointed to the grape leaf display on my counter.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“They were inside the pack.”

He glared at me.

“Before you bite my head off, let me show you something.”

“I told you not to touch it.”

“And you expected me to mind you?”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “No.”

“Okay, then let’s move on.  Take a look at this.”  I pointed to the Carignane illustration.  “I think all of these samples are the same variety.”

“Carignane,” he said, reading the caption under the picture.

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So, I’m working for the state right now on a project to consolidate several databases.  While I was sifting through the data, I discovered some discrepancies between the amount of Zinfandel grapes grown in the state, and the number of gallons of Zinfandel wine produced.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s more Zin wine than there are grapes to support it.”

“Keep going until I understand.”

“Carignane is one of several varieties that are nearly indistinguishable from Zinfandel.”

“And?”

“Zinfandel grapes, on average, sell for seven times more than Carignane grapes.”

“So if someone has a field full of these cheaper grapes—”

“They’d stand to make a fortune.  I think Beth Messina figured it out.  She had these samples in her pack.”

Obermeyer looked skeptical.  “How do we know she wasn’t just going to snack on them?”

“We don’t, but three bunches is quite a snack, don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Let’s assume she wasn’t on the Jenny Craig Grape Diet Program for a moment,” I said.  “If she was on to the scam, she’d take them to someone in authority, right?”

“Probably.”

“Do you still have the record of her cell phone calls?”

Obermeyer nodded and motioned toward the door.  “In my car.  I’ll get it.”

When he returned with the list, he placed it on the counter and we both scanned it. 

“There,” I said, putting my finger on a familiar number.  “That’s the Food and Ag phone number.  And there, and there.  She started making calls to them three days before she was murdered.”

“So she figured it out, set up the appointment with the authorities, but was killed before she could deliver the evidence.”

“I bet she was wearing the back pack when her body was dumped.  The killer must not have gone to the trouble to look inside.”

Obermeyer looked troubled.  “How come we didn’t find it in the cave when her body was discovered?”

“It wasn’t in the cave.  My—a bunch of raccoons had dragged it off to their den and have been working on getting the grapes out through that hole they chewed in the side.”

“You found it in a raccoon den?”

“Yeah.  Tony ran off on a raccoon hunt and when I went looking for him, I found the den.  They must’ve taken it off the body before anyone discovered it.”

I could almost see the gears turning in Obermeyer’s head.  “So, Zucker’s grapes?”

“The real deal.  Zinfandel.  I checked.  He had no reason to kill her.”

“You have any luck yet finding the source of the counterfeit grapes?”

I shook my head.  “The TTB is working on it, but so far nothing.”

“Can I borrow some zip-locks?”

Obermeyer pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and carefully placed the remains of the grape bunches in the plastic baggies I gave him.  He placed them in the back pack and picked it up by one of the broken straps.  “Maybe forensics can lift some prints off this.  I’ll put a rush on it.”

Before he left, Obermeyer squatted down and scratched Tony’s ears one more time.  “You be a good dog and guard this place, okay?”

I’d swear Tony nodded.

Obermeyer stood up and gave me a serious look.  “And you keep these doors and windows locked.  Set the alarm as soon as I leave, and don’t open the door for anyone you don’t know.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” I said, grinning.

“I mean it.  This is serious.”

Wiping the smile off my face, I said, “Okay.”

Hungry, I went into the kitchen to fix something for dinner.  I opened a bottle of Chardonnay that promised complex and restrained flavors, reminiscent of peach, pear, and apple with overtones of vanilla, toast, and spicy oak.

Five minutes after Obermeyer left, there was a knock at my front door.  “What’d you forget?” I said, then peered through the curtain panel on my front door, expecting to see Obermeyer standing there. 

It was Roger.

He shrugged and flashed me a sheepish grin, then held up a bouquet of roses in a peace-offering pose.  “Can I come in?”

I shook my head.

“Please?  I won’t stay long, I promise.”

Roger’s promises were worthless.  “Go home.”

“I’m not leaving until you let me say what I came to say.”  He tried his poor-pitiful-me face.

I closed the curtain and went into the kitchen to work on fixing dinner, but he kept knocking.

“I have a dog!” I hollered at the door.  “He’ll take your leg off!”

Roger loved dogs.  And dogs loved Roger, for some odd reason, so he wasn’t fazed by my threat.  “You do?  What’s its name?”

After ten minutes of his begging and pleading, I finally grabbed the pepper-spray canister I kept in my purse and yanked the door open, ready to spray him if he gave me the slightest excuse.  “How the hell did you get my address?” I demanded.

“The internet is amazing.”   He held the roses out to me.  “Here.”

“No thanks.”

“Come on, Katie.  I’m trying to make amends here.”

Tony slipped out the door to sniff at Roger’s boots.  “Tony!” I called.

Roger feigned trembling fear.  “Oh my God, will I survive the leg-shredding from your guard dog?”

What a jerk
.

I stepped out on the porch and picked Tony up.  “What do you want?”

“I just wondered if we could go out sometime.  You know?  Like old times?”

He must have lost his mind.  I put Tony in the house and closed the door, then turned to face Roger.  “I’m sorry?  Did I give you the impression that I’d be interested in getting involved with you again?”

“It’s just that we were together so many years.  It just feels comfortable to be with you, you know?”

I shook my head, astonished.

“I’m not talking anything serious.  I just thought we could hang out.”

The fact that Roger had gone to the trouble to track down my address worried me.  He could be persistent, obviously, and I needed to squash his ambition before it went any farther.  Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too difficult.  Roger was always attracted to women who were willing to settle for less.  He liked women who would go along with whatever he wanted to do.  He was used to picking the movie, the restaurant, the car, the vacation spot.  The old Kate put up with him because she didn’t know any better.  I doubt he’d like the Kate I’d become in the years since he left me.

I took the flowers from him and sniffed them.  He smiled.  Then I flung them over the porch rail into the darkness of the yard and his smile faded.

“What’d you do that for?”

“Roger, I want you to listen up, because I’m only going to say this once.”  I took a step toward him and he took a step back.  “I wasted seven years of my life on you.  Seven years that I’ll never get back.  Because of you I no longer trust anyone.  I can’t even trust—”

“Just let me try to—”

“What!  Make it up to me?”

“No, I just—”

“Shut up, Roger!”  I took a deep breath.  “You strung me along all those years, then when you thought you’d found something better, you tossed me out like a piece of trash.”

“That’s not—”

“Now you’re scrounging around trying to find what you threw away.  The problem is, Roger,
you
are the trash and the home-wrecker you hooked up with is a trash collector.  You deserve each other.”

He shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He’d never seen me stand up for myself before.

“You’re a lying, cheating weasel.  You have less character than an ameba.”

He feigned a shot to the heart.

“So, to make this as clear as I possibly can, I never, ever,
ever
want to see or hear from you again.  Clear?”

After a moment of thought, he nodded, turned, then walked down the steps and back toward the gate.  Halfway there, he called over his shoulder, “You’ll change your mind, Katie.  You know I don’t give up this easy.”

I stepped in the house and slammed the door shut, then set the deadbolt.  Peering through the parted curtains, I watched as he crawled through the rails and got into his car, which he’d parked on the road. 

After his taillights disappeared, I collapsed on the sofa and gnawed on my thumbnail.  I should have felt relieved that he was gone, but I had a nagging feeling that this was one of the rare occasions when Roger wasn’t lying to me.  He wouldn’t give up just like that.

Chapter Twenty-eight

S
taring at the ceiling, I felt a tear roll down my temple and into my hair, and then another.  Damn Roger anyway.  Did he plan to haunt me for the rest of my life?

  Tony put his paws on the couch and licked my fingers.

“I’m okay,” I assured him, but apparently he wasn’t buying it.  He rested his little chin on my hand and looked up at me with his root-beer-brown and sky-blue eyes.  How could I be sad with a face like that gazing at me?

Wiping the tears away, I rolled off the couch and grabbed one of his toys.  “Go fetch it,” I said, tossing the knotted sock into the dining room.  Before he had a chance to bring it back, my phone rang.  On the off chance that it might be Roger, I let the answering machine pick it up.

“Kate, where are you?  It’s me.  Pete.”

I raced for the phone and snatched it off the cradle.  “I’m here,” I blurted.

“I’ve got some great news.”

“I won the lottery?” I said.

“You buy a ticket?”

“No.”

“That
is
the one thing all winners have in common,” he mused.  “But, my news is almost as good.”

“Yeah?”  I felt my hopes lift a fraction of an inch.

“I have a check in my hand for you.  Full payment for grapes delivered.”

I thought I might break into a sudden laughing fit.  Talk about being on a roller coaster.

“The bad news is—”

“No!  I don’t want to hear the bad news.”

“Well, the thing is, I’m on my way to Bakersfield so I either have to put it in the mail or you’ll have to wait till I get back next week.”

“Oh, Pete.  I need that check yesterday.  I’ll come get it.  Where are you?”

“No, don’t do that.  I’m on the road right now.  If it’s not too late for you, I’ll make a slight detour and drop it off.”

“That’d be great.”

“Okay, darlin’.  I’m about twenty minutes away, so I’ll see you in a bit.”

Tony probably thought he’d been adopted by a bipolar lunatic.  One minute I was in tears, and the next I was dancing around the house singing.

While I waited for Pete, I sat at my desk and checked my e-mail.  Quinn Adamson had sent me a large file attachment that took several minutes to download.  His message said it was a small database one of his staff members developed but never implemented.  It contained a few more fields of information than the database I’d been working with and he thought perhaps I might garner something useful from it.

By the time I got the database saved to my hard drive and opened the first table in the list, headlights from Pete’s truck shone through my window.  I aimed the gate opener out the window and pressed the button.  He parked behind my pickup in the carport and waved at me as he walked past the office window.

“I guess you’ve been anxious for this,” he said when I opened the door.  He waved the check in the air like a little flag.

“You could say that,” I said, reaching for it before he could accidentally drop it and have the wind carry it away.

“I just need you to sign a receipt that you’ve gotten it,” he said.

I opened the door wider.  “Sure.  Come on it.  Let me get a pen.”

Pete followed me to my office, and Tony followed Pete, sniffing at his heels along the way.  “So, what’s going on in Bakersfield?” I asked, rummaging in my desk drawer for a pen.

“I got my arm twisted to be a speaker at this year’s Winegrowers Association Conference.”

“Really?  I thought that was last week.”  I found a pen and tried to sign the receipt, but it was out of ink, so I continued searching.

“Nope.  Starts tomorrow.  That’s why I have to get down there tonight so I can be fresh for my speech.”

My fingers found another pen and this time it wasn’t dry.  I signed the receipt and handed it to Pete across the desk.  “Here you go.”

As he reached for the paper, his eyes stopped on a flyer lying on my desk announcing the Winegrowers Association Conference with the dates stamped in bold print.  The conference was last week, as I had thought.  “Looks like someone gave you the wrong dates,” I said.

“Did I say winegrowers?  I meant the San Joaquin Viticulture Association.”

As he folded the receipt and stuffed it in his wallet, I gazed at my computer screen.  The new database included a column that the previous one didn’t—grape broker.  I noticed Pete’s name listed several times, which wasn’t surprising since he brokered many vineyards in the valley.  What did surprise me was the fact that he was listed as the broker for Adobe Vineyards, one of the suspect vineyards in the Zinfandel scandal—the one he claimed to know nothing about.

“Do you speak at a lot of functions?” I asked as I typed a brief database command to sort the list by broker.

“Not much.  I get nervous and forget half of what I’m supposed to say.”

Scanning the list, I spotted Genova Farms, also brokered by Pete.  My heart rate sped up to a faster gait.

“What’s that you’re looking at?” he asked, leaning over my desk to get a peek at my screen. 

“Nothing,” I said as I closed the computer window.  “I better let you get on the road.  Bakersfield’s a long drive.”

Glancing out the window at Pete’s powder-blue Chevy pickup, I suddenly realized that in the moonlight, it appeared white.  Just like the Grass Valley sniper’s two-toned blue mustang looked blue and white in the dark. 

My heart began loping.  The white pickup that woke me out of a sound sleep before harvest began… could it have been Pete out there?  Dumping Beth Messina’s body?  A flood of memories came rushing into my mind.  The sound I’d heard banging in the back of the pickup as he sped away was probably the post-hole digger he’d borrowed from Andy, and the broken transit level.  That was the electronic beeping sound I kept hearing.

He stood in the doorway between me and any form of escape, unless I chose to dive out the window.  He was wearing a new plaid flannel shirt, his usual attire.  Then I recalled the piece of flannel that had been stuck in my gate latch after the late-night visit.  He must’ve caught it in the mechanism when he was carrying the body to the cave.

“It’s what, four hours to Bakersfield?” I said, sure I sounded as nervous as a politician in church.  At that instant, I remembered where I’d seen the face of the man who claimed the printer box—it was Pete’s brother, Tommy, who I’d seen the day Pete took me to watch the grapes being crushed at Venezia.

When Pete strolled out into the hallway and toward the living room, I felt a surge of relief.  I hurried out of the office and followed him to the door, planning to slam it shut behind him.  Instead of opening it, though, he double-checked the lock.

I was in trouble.

The hair on Tony’s back shot up and he started growling furiously at Pete.  I snatched Tony up and raced for the back door, but Pete caught the tail of my shirt and yanked me back.  I screamed. 

Tony wriggled out of my arms and clamped his teeth into Pete’s leg, snarling.

“Damn dog!” Pete yelled, swinging his foot back and forth trying to dislodge Tony, but the little guy wouldn’t let go.

I elbowed Pete hard in the ribs while he was distracted and he let go of me for an instant.  With adrenaline pumping through my veins, and my heart rate at a full gallop, I sprinted down the hallway to my bedroom and slammed the door shut.  Since there was no lock, I grabbed the doorstop that normally held it open and jammed it under the door.  Within seconds, Pete was at the door, banging against it and forcing the doorstop to give up a little ground with each bash.

I lunged for the phone next to my bed and dialed 911.  On the third ring, Pete’s hand appeared through the opening in the door.

Who was I kidding?  I’d be dead before the 911 operator could get help clear out here.  I tossed the phone on the bed and dove under it, grasping the Mossberg shotgun.

Pete’s grunts as he hit the door grew louder and angrier.  I wriggled out from under the bed and yanked my nightstand drawer open in a frenzied search for the box of shotgun shells I’d hidden under my Capri pants and tank-tops.  When my fingers finally landed on the box, I saw Pete’s entire arm reach through the door.

My breathing was so fast I felt light-headed.  Dumping the shells on the floor, I grabbed one and panicked when I couldn’t remember how to load it.  Then I realized the trigger lock was still installed.  I stuffed a handful of shells in my pocket, then diving back into the nightstand drawer, I felt for the tiny key I’d hidden there.  Pete’s shoulder was through the door.  Any second now, he’d be in. 

Just as my fingers found the trigger-lock key, he slithered through the opening.  I tried to raise the old double-hung window but it was stuck.  Using the butt of the shotgun, I smashed the window over my nightstand and dove through it, feeling something sharp scrape my right arm and thigh.  I landed on my hands and knees, the shotgun about two feet in front of me.  I’d dropped the trigger-lock key when I landed.  Feeling for it in the lawn, I heard heavy breathing approaching.  Looking over my shoulder, Pete stood in the window, ready to leap. 

An instant before he jumped, I found the key and took off, slipping it in my pocket as I ran.  Pete’s boots pounded the ground behind me, not quite close enough to grab me but too close for me to even think about looking back.  My only goal was to keep running as fast as I could and hope my legs and lungs would not give out on me.

The vineyard was in front of me and the road was to my right.  The road would’ve been my first choice but the driveway gate had already closed and I’d have to get over it, but before I could even consider such a feat, I had to put some distance between us.   

With no time to think about it, I headed for the vineyard.  I’d still have a fence to deal with, but I could dive and roll under the bottom rail.  Thick and bulky, Pete would probably choose to go over the top—I hoped—buying me a little time.  By the time I’d reached the vineyard fence, I had not put one inch more between us.  Luckily, the full moon illuminated the white rails.  When I got within three feet, I sensed I’d never escape him.  I held the shotgun tight under my right arm and planted the barrel end square into a fence post, letting the butt end stick out behind me.  An instant later, Pete’s belly made full contact with the stock, knocking the wind out of him.  He grunted like a spurred horse then went down on all fours as he struggled to catch his breath.

Taking advantage of the time I’d just bought myself, I slipped through the fence and weighed my options.  If I headed down one of the rows, I’d be trapped in a chute like a cow headed for slaughter.  I decided to stick to the perimeter until I could get out of Pete’s sight then slip, unseen, down a row and disappear into the vines.

Clearly, Pete had other plans.  He’d recovered from the blow faster than what I thought humanly possible, and he was back on my tail, though not as close as before.  Just as I reached the top of the hill, Zucker’s farm came into view.  The abandoned place was dark except for a yard light on top of a telephone pole that came on every night at dusk and stayed on until dawn.  There’d be places for me to hide if I could get down there, and if I stayed out of the illuminated areas.

One more fence to get through and I’d be on the Zucker property.  A coyote howled as I slid between the rails.  Pete’s labored breathing approached fast, but he was slowing down.  So was I.

I headed for the darkness behind the big run-down barn.  Halfway across what I thought was an open field, my left shin came into contact with something hard and sharp—the blade of a disc harrow hiding in the tall dry grass.  Sailing through the air with no idea if I’d land headlong into another piece of tractor equipment, I let go of the shotgun and tucked into a ball.

Still lumbering at me like a locomotive, Pete encountered the disc blade an instant before I latched onto the shotgun and sprinted off toward the darkness of a grove of old oak trees.

The disc blade flipped Pete over and landed him on his head, from what I could tell.  I hunkered down in the wild oats behind a massive oak and fished in my pocket for the trigger-lock key.  Keeping one eye on Pete as he staggered to his feet, I fumbled the key several times before I finally got the correct end between my fingers.  Standing upright, Pete stood still and slowly turned in a complete circle, looking for me.

My lungs could not get enough air, and no matter how desperately I tried to control the sound of my breathing, Pete honed in on my location.  He stopped scanning and took a few tentative steps in my direction.

Panicked now, I tried to force the key into the lock, but it kept slipping off the side.  When he was within twenty feet, the key slipped out of my fingers and fell into the grass.  With no time to look for it, I got to my feet and grasped the barrel end, holding the Mossberg like a baseball bat.  Slowly, I crept backward, slipping behind the trunk of the oak.  I darted to another tree, then another.  Pete kept coming, but he was not nearly as agile as when this chase began.

“Give it up, darlin’!” he hollered.  “You can’t get away!”

I peered around the tree I was hiding behind to see him walking straight for me.  “So you killed Beth Messina,” I called back to him.  “Why’d you do it?”